Bekçi

Instrumentation: Piccolo, 2 Flutes, 3 Oboes, 2 Clarinets in Bb, Bass Clarinet in Bb, 2 Bassoons, Contrabassoon, 4 Horns in F, 3 Trumpets in Bb, 3 Trombones, Tuba, Timpani, 3 Percussion, 2 Harps, Piano, Strings

Year of composition: July 2025

Performances: 1 October 2025, IU Philharmonic Orchestra

Duration: 14 min. ca.

Bekçi (Turkish for The Guard) is a piece born out of long, solitary nights in which I found myself sitting awake for hours, sometimes without writing a single note, just imagining music. As the night deepened, my inner visions grew stronger, more ecstatic, almost hallucinatory—an ecstasy reserved only for those who remain awake long enough to see into the very heart of the night.

The piece unfolds as a tension between extremes—between chamber-like intimacy and the full force of the orchestra, between fleeting tonality and harmonic turbulence. At its center lies a single note that returns again and again, a stubborn guardian of the night’s passage. For twelve minutes it lingers, until the music ruptures into an overwhelming flood of sound and, with its end, arrives at the close of night —the calm and magical twilight hour. It is a call for rest, for drifting into yet another world of dreams, as the waking world is left to recover.

Bekçi is the figure who stays awake, who guards the threshold of night, who witnesses the ecstasy that intensifies in the resistance to sleep.